My Genealogy Hound

Dr. Madison C. Hawkins was born in Bath County, Ky., July 19, 1818. At the age of twelve years he removed with his parents, Gregory and Sarah Hawkins, to Missouri, and settled near the town of Tully, in what is now Lewis County. Pioneer life afforded but little opportunity of developing the fondness for books, early evinced by the young subject of this sketch; his school education was accordingly limited to the curriculum of the log schoolhouse, from which he graduated at the end of a few midwinter terms. Circumstances, rather than any decided taste in that direction, led him to pursue the study of medicine under old Doctor Alfred Frazier, an early practitioner of Lewis County, who lived some seven miles south of La Grange. After attending the Lexington (Kentucky) Medical College during the years 1842 and 1843, he returned to his home in Lewis County, where, within the few years of his practice here, he easily pushed his way to the front ranks in his chosen profession. In 1843 he was married to Miss Phebe E. Rees, in whom he found throughout the course of his subsequent life a helpmeet possessing in an eminent degree all those qualities of mind, graces of the womanly character, that stand as a tower of strength to further the husband’s most cherished enterprises. Their union bore no issue, but an adopted daughter, now Mrs. F. L. Schofield, whom they reared and educated, shares with her, who still survives, the cherished memories of husband and foster-father. In 1847 Dr. Hawkins removed to Camden County, where he engaged in the practice of his profession some four years, during which time he also represented that county in the General Assembly of the State. In 1858 he returned to Lewis County, determined to abandon the profession; it afforded inadequate scope for his aggressive and enterprising spirit At once launching important mercantile and manufacturing enterprises, he also commenced and pursued with great delight the study of the law. After a preparation of several years he attended the Cincinnati (Ohio) Law School, in 1853 and 1854, and, returning, practiced at the bar of Northeast Missouri with success and distinction, till within a few years of his death. Having accumulated a competency, he retired from the practice and from active business, about 1870, but not to devote his remaining years to aimless leisure. About this period new problems were engaging the scientific world, which, if solved after the formula then fast gaining popularity, must needs demand some important changes in the current interpretation of the Bible. Dr. Hawkins, profoundly believing that the Holy Bible and the book of Nature were but the handwriting of a single author, determined to dedicate the years that remained to him to labor on the side of those who maintained that science was indeed the handmaid of the religion of God, and between whom there was and could be no conflict. Here he pursued his studies with great zeal and devotion. His writings upon the subject were on the main fragmentary, a number of which were collected and published for private circulation after his death. Unfortunately, however, several of his most important and able papers were lost. While thus engaged he collected, at his own private expense, a museum of natural history for the college at Canton. He was a Democrat in politics, but aside from making a race for Congress at a time when there was no hope for electing a Democrat, the Drake constitution being in force, he never sought political preferment. He was a prominent Freemason, very active in church, in Sunday-school and educational matters, being president of the board of trustees of Christian University, and of the board of education of the town of Canton, for a number of years. Public-spirited, far-sighted and courageous, he led in enterprises, public and private, and perhaps did more than any other one man in promoting local interests and building up his town. A prominent characteristic was his interest in a sympathy for young men, ever ready to aid with his counsel as with his purse; he placed many on the high road to a successful career, who must otherwise have utterly failed. The leading literary society in the university bears his name. He died April 15, 1872.